Thou Shall Fear Salafis?

Mustafa Salama has written an interesting peace in the Daily News Egypt about misperceptions in the Western media regarding Salafism, a conservative movement within Islam that garnered 25% of the vote in the recent elections in Egypt.

Salama writes:

Salafis have been severely oppressed and restricted under the Mubarak regime as most forms of religiously devout social Islamic movements; today, this is no longer the case. Al-Noor Party against all expectations gained 25% of the seats in the parliament; this is despite the fact that they have never been organised (simply were never allowed to be) and only did so in a matter of months. Today, one of four assistants to President Morsy is the current head of Al-Noor party. Yes many pundits may tell you Salafis are totalitarian and hate freedom but Al-Noor party will soon be having internal elections.

Sure Mubarak openly slandered Salafis in some of his final speeches before the revolution, however, today it is no longer acceptable to do that. Salafis are not only prominent and influential in Egypt but have strong footholds in several Arab countries in the form of social movement organizations and political parties or blocs.

And for something that might surprise many American Christians, Salama writes:

Salafis generally have bad media coverage, this is not to say that the movement does not have any bad apples, however they are just like any other movement or social strata. During the revolution, it was widely reported that they were protecting Churches in Sinai and elsewhere from vandalism and theft, risking their lives while doing so. It was reported in Egyptian media but maybe most of the western media has no interest in reporting it.

What??? The Western media didn’t report that conservative Islamists were protecting churches???